Vasya 'Kovak
Sokol Vasya Kovak is retired Sangheili Field Marshall responsible for the relative success of the raids and invasions of the Jiralhanae home planet of Doisac. A capable general having served on many fronts, Vasya is extremely adept at defensive tactics with surgical counter strikes in enemy lines causing disruption and splintering of forces with practiced precission. 'Sokol' is under investigation with ONI due to Spartan II/III casualties inflicted by him during the Human-Covenant war and an odd recent peice of shady information reguarding possible contact with a human insurrectionist group. Personality and Traits Vasya is clearly eccentric but holds a surprising ammount of intelligence. Vasya normally harbors a respect for his enemies, believing that the hunter can always become the prey if one doesn't take the necessary precautions. During his work Vasya has a strict communicative filter, the thought being that everything has been covered in the briefing and expecting his personal retuine to have understood everything. Vasya in his free time designs makeshift traps and contraptions, a tinkering and designer of random objects by heart and capable of making or repairing random contraptions with almost nothing. Despite this, Vasya when off duty has a surprisingly almost polar opposite take on life and how he goes about things. He is surprisingly easy going and capable of seemingly making friends with anyone with a variety of stories to tell, as well as the ability to try nearly anything new. Vasya's more lax take on the Sangheili honor system makes him much more relatable off duty and nearly twice as dangerous in the battlefield. Personality wise, Vasya is naturally charismatic and larger then life. Preferring to make a fool out of someone who tries to get into a pissing contest rather then wasting his time, as well as generally not taking off duty time seriously. Physical and Biological Traits Vasya is easiest identified by scaring of his lower neck as well as how he generally carries himself about conversation and stature. Physically imposing even for his race, Vasya is obsessed with staying in shape as he believes that his failure to get back into action fast enough is what caused his honorable discharge. Vasya goes on nearly endless runs around his base (usually carrying a ridiculous ammount of weight) and command center, sometimes for himself, sometimes to jar his thoughts, mostly so he can be alone for awhile (most around his firebase know better at this point to try and bring something up to him during his runs). Vasya has stamina, physical strength, and speed to boot. Making him not only a dangerous mind on the battlefield but an extremely capable combatant. Early Life Vasya 'Kovak was born to a poor family on cold Sangheili temperate colony world, due to this Vasya grew up without the heavy tradition martial laden society that Sangheili typically grow up with. Despite this, Vasya's "military training" was unorthodox. He grew up with his life revolving around hunting and trapping with his father (an oddity among Sangheili as most don't know their fathers, but due to his small colony life this tradition was overstepped along with his military training). Vasya grew up somewhat skeptical of the Covenant religion but like all Sangheili it was eventually hammered in. Hunting Incident ONI picked Vasya's homeplanet as it was sparcely populated yet still had a heavy ship presence in the area as the colony was in close proximity to a refueling station. The idea was that if they could bug enough ships that brought supplies to the small colony, ONI could, in theory, map out a decent ammount of Covenant colonies and supplies shipping routes as well as disrupting Covenant mining operations in the area while observing Sangheili habits in the meantime. Vasya and his father (the later who was to old to serve in the Covenant and Vasya being barely too young) would accidently stumble upon their headquarters completely by chance. Vasya's father was killed as they approached the site and Vasya was wounded grievously. However in the following engagement Vasya managed to kill his pursuers with a series of makeshift weapons and traps. Amazingly, he was able to survive to ordeal despite overwhelming odds and being wounded. Covenant Propaganda Because of the incident, his actions drew the attention of the district San Shyuum. He reported the incident and the description of what happened and the potential nature of what the humans were doing, the story spread like wildfire unintentionally and served as somewhat of a form of propaganda. Thanks to this Vasya was accepted into the zealotry and educated properly for the Covenant. Covenant Service Vasya would go on to be educated by one of the finest war colleges in Covenant space for ground command, although he was again generally disrespected by other Sangheili in the Covenant as he didn't understand as much Sangheili traditional values as others. This would go on to sabotage his own command with some of his troops at the beginning it made him relatively more successful when going on to fight interior Covenant insurrections and Humans during the Human-Covenant war. This would make him unpredictable when his UNSC opponents would attempt to breach the Field Marshalls defensive lines around landing areas while his superiors where invading human worlds. Thanks to his experience and impressive knowledge about observed human psychology and tactics, this would prevent incursions big and small, even when dealing with Spartan reconnaissance teams or even Spartan teams after his head. He was infamous throughout the Covenant for deploying Jiralhanae and Sangheili in the same regions forcibly and to great effect combining shock tactics with ruthless precision and efficiency, however at great displeasure from his superiors. Covenant Political Opposition Due to Vasya's basic lack of heeding to tradition and unorthodox tactics and use of lesser species in his tactics, Vasya found command increasingly difficult in his beginning years due to the most of the martial ladder to climb being Sangheili who opposed his tactics. Because of Vasya's favorability with the San Shyuum and paired with his overwhelming success of command both squad and army size. Great Schism and Blooding Years Vasya's popularity ammong the Jiralhanae portion of his men is what most likely saved Vasya initially but faced with fighting his own men his tactics faulted at first. However with his natural charisma, he was able to rally his Sangheili to at the very least temporarily work with the humans and decimate the resistance utilizing personal surgical attacks against the Jiralhanae and San Shyuum leadership causing them to fall in on themselves. Thanks to his success against the Jiralhanae and eventually against the Covenant Splinter groups, he was chosen for counter attacks and defensive operations against the Jiralhanae and against Doissac itself. Doissac Raids Vasya utilized tactics that forced the brutes to react to their presence on Doissac in force which would be normally picked apart with artillery support and a mobile defense which allowed him to hold against forces significantly larger then his own. His main objective was securing downed Cruisers and other military ships until they could be repaired, glorified scavenging for Sangheilios. Despite this Vasya remained steadfast and continued utilizing his strong defensive tactics and even new rigged weaponry and again surgical personal attacks against their leadership to hold back the Jiralhanae. Swords of Sangheilios Politics Vasya always voiced his opinions to the elders back on Sangheilios from the Doissac front as he refused to leave his men even if offered good communications with them. He believed that the humans could not be trusted, and peace talks with the Jiralhanae foolish. He believed that the humans would act against the Sangheili as soon as they let their guard down even if it wasn't visually indentifiable (in many cases he was actually right). Further more he refused any support, advice, or talks with and human sources. 2 ONI Ground Surveillance teams have also gone dark trying to watch him, although he seemingly has reported this to his superiors. Honorable Discharge During a particularly harsh defense, Vasya personally left defensive positions to rescue his reconnaisance team with his command retinue lekgolo assisstance. Vasya covered the retreat by himself with a beam rifle and improvised traps and explosives, holding them long enough for his friends and soldiers to make it back to he defenses but after he was again grievously wounded from enemy fire and being crushed from the wreckage of a Jiralhanae chopper, causing several broken bones and wounds. He was rescued by his men as they felt that he would of done the same. He was brought to Sangheilios for medical attention, making this his first visit to his species' homeworld where he was given military commendations as well as an honorable discharge due to his age and phsyical condition from the chopper landing on him as it was unlikely he would fully heal. The honorable dischange didn't sit with him well and he pushed himself during his recovery process after it was agreed to give him time to see if he could turn things around. Although he did manage to heal in a short mine of time, his honorable discharge was still enforced. Insurrectionists An ONI source on his planet has sent back information reguarding possible contact with an unknown insurrectionist cell. It is unknown if Vasya joined with the insurrectionists but its likely they appealed to him with an offer to serve again. If he joins even a small insurrectnionist cell, there are no estimates as to the damage he can cause even indirectly. Retinue Along with Vasya's dissapearance 2 of his closest friends and advisors have gone AWOL from the Swords of Sangheilios (Both Zealots) assumingly to join him in his command once again. These two unidentified Sangheili Zealots have served with Vasya since he attained his first platoon command.